Changed, Changed Utterly

by illuminata79

Absolutely nothing is the way it used to be when Mick comes to at the hospital.

Mick comes around to the staggering realisation that his life will never be the same even with the war over.

Darkness Darkness, a song written in 1969 by Jesse Colin Young, has been recorded by many artists since. (My favourite version is by a somewhat obscure German "electro-medieval" band called Helium Vola). Whatever version you might prefer, the lyrics perfectly reflect Mick's disheartened state of mind as he is walking his darkest valley yet.

Darkness, darkness, be my pillow
Take my hand, and let me sleep
In the coolness of your shadow
In the silence of your deep

Darkness, darkness, hide my yearning
For the things I cannot be
Keep my mind from constant turning
Toward the things I cannot see
Things I cannot see
Things I cannot see

Darkness, darkness, long and lonesome
Ease the day that brings me pain
I have felt the edge of sadness
I have known the depth of fear

Darkness, darkness, be my blanket
Cover me with the endless night
Take away, take away the pain of knowing
Fill the emptiness of right now
The emptiness of right now
The emptiness of right now

---

„He's coming to!"

A female voice, distant, unfamiliar and somewhat excited, was the first thing I became aware of.

It was like coming up after a long dive, like breaking through the surface of murky waters that had submerged me for I didn't know how long.

My mouth was terribly dry. I tried to lick my lips and found my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth, which made my overall feeling of slight nausea even worse. I swallowed hard and grimaced faintly because it hurt my parched throat.

"No, really, Sister, he's coming to! Look, he's wincing!" the female voice cried out again, closer this time.

"You can look after him in a minute. I need you over here, he's bleeding again!" another, sterner, older voice said, and I heard footsteps busily, hurriedly retreating from where I lay.

Slowly, I ventured to open my eyes.

For no reason I could have named, I had expected everything to be blurry in this first moment, but apart from having to squint against the sudden brightness of the overhead lights that made my eyes water, I could see just fine and clear what was in my field of vision - the whitewashed ceiling, the functional lamps, the upper portion of a doorframe whose white paint had turned a yellowish eggshell colour over the years, and, from the corner of my eye, a white screen, probably serving to separate my bed from the next one. I could hear the women's voices and someone's laboured breathing from behind it.

The hospital. I must still be in the hospital.

I remembered vaguely that I'd been there before, but I could not bring back any details other than the unspecific feeling of having seen some bad things happen.

Slowly I became aware of lying flat on my back, which I found rather uncomfortable. I had been accustomed to sleeping on my side ever since my childhood and tried to shift into a more convenient position, but I couldn't move.

Suddenly a panic grabbed hold of me that one of the dreadful things that had happened had left me paralyzed.

I checked my arms and realized with profound relief that I could use them all right except for the fact that a kind of tube or line tugged at the back of my left hand when I moved it.

There was feeling in my legs, too, but something was weighing them down and chafing at my hip.

I slid my free hand under the covers tentatively, seeking to find out and possibly get rid of what was grating against my hipbone, and knocked into something hard and solid.

What on earth was that?

I peeled back a corner of the sheet and raised my head, just a little, just enough that I could get a peek at the edge of a plaster cast encasing my hip before I had to lie back down to alleviate a surging dizzy sickness.

Had I taken a fall and broken my hipbone?

I couldn't remember falling, but then, I couldn't seem to remember anything in particular right now.

There was a little scrap of a memory niggling at the back of my mind, the harbinger of something bad, a remote kind of threat hanging over me, but I couldn't put my finger on it just yet.

Pain flared up in my right leg, a sharp, piercing pain that dredged up the recollection of a different kind of pain, of a hot dull throbbing.

Some bad swelling, a fever.

An inflamed injury to my thigh.

That was what had been so menacing. The worst enemy of a wounded soldier: infection.

It was gone now, wasn't it? That stuff they'd given me through the IV drip I remembered must have helped after all.

It must be good that this pain I felt was of a clean-cut, sharp-edged variety. I didn't think I had a fever any more. I was feeling rather warm, but it wasn't this consuming kind of heat that had been burning within me earlier.

I tried bending my knee to check if the swelling was gone, too, but I couldn't. I guessed that the cast prevented it, which led me to presume that this fall I had no memory of had been a bad one, resulting in multiple fractures in my leg. Or was it the normal procedure to put all of the leg in a cast when you had wrecked your hip?

Whatever it was, I began wondering how long this injury would keep me grounded and how quickly I'd regain my old fitness.

I had never been out of action for more than a few days for all my life, except for the time I broke my arm when I was seven, and for the dislocated shoulder I'd suffered during my sailor days. I hated any forced idleness and wasn't overly tickled about the prospect of having to stay in the hospital for a longer period of recovery.

But then, it would keep me out of the war I now recalled I'd been fighting in.

And besides, there was something reassuring to that kind of injury.

Broken bones were something neat and predictable. You endured the plaster cast for a while and they'd heal, no surgery, no infection, no blood, no medication. A bit of limping about on crutches once you were allowed to get up, then a bit of physical therapy, and you were as good as new.

As good as new and fit to go back to the war, to stop another bullet.

This sarcastic thought brought back the faces.

Young, fresh, eager faces, and their slightly older and much more harassed versions.

My boys, so vivid again in my mind's eye.

How could I ever have forgotten about them?

Henderson and Leary, my two redheads, joking, singing raucous Irish drinking songs aboard the ship that took us to our first combat mission.

Henderson helping us lug a cursing, moaning Leary along on an improvised stretcher.

Joe, dressed up as a woman one jolly drunken night, pretending to hit on me in a fake French accent which left everyone in stitches.

Joe, soaked in blood, dead in my arms, just a few weeks later.

Jimmy, luxuriously feasting on a chocolate bar once a particularly nasty bout of his recurring stomach trouble was over.

Jimmy with this gruesome expression of surprise on his unblemished face that belied the gaping holes in his belly and chest.

Richard's pale lips moaning in anguish, all blood drained from his face.

Richard's cheeky smile from under the garrison cap worn at a rakish angle, the last I'd seen of him before he turned and walked out of the hospital room.

It was all rushing back at me, and it was getting too much for my woozy head.

I closed my eyes again and ran a hand over my face as if to erase all the thoughts for the moment, trying to breathe easy.

A warm hand placed itself on my shoulder, and the female voice I'd heard before, the first, younger one, said, "Welcome back among the living, Corporal."

I was sure I wouldn't bring out anything understandable if I tried to speak, so I just made some inarticulate sound and cautiously reopened my eyes.

A young nurse was smiling down on me. She looked kind and competent, a starched white cap and soft waves of brown hair framing a broad, round-cheeked face that would have appeared rather plain if it hadn't been for her warm hazel eyes and the genuine smile widening her large mouth.

Her white apron was speckled with small red spots, and she looked hot and flushed in her grey dress. She wiped her brow with her sleeve and went on, "Feeling dizzy?"

I didn't dare nod for fear it would upset my swimming head but batted my eyelids in agreement while sucking in my lips to try and wet them a little.

Her trained eye picked up on this immediately. "Oh, I guess you must be awfully thirsty. Everyone is once they've come around. Wait a sec, I'll get you a drink."

She touched my shoulder again before she disappeared outside. The small kind gesture made me want to weep, but I pulled myself together to maintain a semblance of composure.

She was back right away with some water and held me up while I sipped it very slowly. It was warm and flat and so delicious, and I gave an involuntary moan when some of it dribbled down my front, hating to see it wasted. Long marches through searing heat had taught me to save, and to savour, every drop of water available.

I was both embarrassed and grateful when she took the half-empty cup from me and dried my wet chin and neck as I sank back onto my pillow, feeling refreshed but awfully tired.

I found it hard to believe that not so long ago I had commanded my little squad and led them through the jungle for hours on end to engage in fight after fight when I barely managed to lift a cup of water now.

"What's the date?" I asked in a throaty whisper. I had to get back on track, re-establish a sense of time.

"August sixteenth", she said.

"August … sixteenth", I repeated. That must be almost three weeks since Richard had left.

There was another pressing question on my mind, one I hardly dared ask because it might be just too much to hope for.

"And the … the war? Is it … will I … must I …"

A fleeting smile crossed her face as she replied, "You don't have to go back there. The war is over. For you, and for everyone else. Can you believe you slept right through the end of it all?"

"It's over", I repeated hoarsely. "Finally. Thank God."

After four long years, after all the bloodshed, my prayers seemed to have been heard.

All I had to do now was recover and go home.

Finally, I plucked up the courage to ask what exactly it was I'd need to recover from.

The answer made me wish I had not asked just yet, that I had allowed myself a slightly longer period of blissful ignorance.

It had not been the young nurse herself who'd given the answer; she had gone to get a doctor "to talk about the medical details". I hadn't believed, and still didn't believe, that this was the only, or main, reason - but I couldn't blame her for not wanting to be the one who told me what had happened while I'd been out of it.

I had no memory at all of the past two and a half weeks. To me, it had felt like a long, deep, dreamless sleep.

The nightmare had only begun after I'd woken up.

The doctor calmly explained in a matter-of-fact but not unsympathetic tone that they had saved my life – which seemed to have been quite an accomplishment, as I had apparently damn near bought it - but that this feat had come at a high price.

He was sorry to say that they had tried to avoid what he called the "radical procedure" for as long as possible, but in the end they had not been able to vanquish the raging infection by any other means and had been forced to act to prevent the worst as sepsis began spreading rapidly, and lethally, within my bloodstream.

"Do I have to be grateful now?" was the acerbic question on the tip of my tongue.

I might have said it aloud if it hadn't been for my dried-out mouth that still made speaking difficult.

By the time I had managed to clear and moisten my throat, the doctor had already gone on to point out that he was glad I had come around finally, that the healing was proceeding in a very satisfactory fashion and that they had successfully flushed the infection out of my body with continued doses of penicillin, so nothing should be in the way of full recovery now.

Full recovery.

As if there could be such a thing for me now.

I turned my face half away from the doctor sitting by my bedside, wishing he would go and leave me alone.

He muttered something apologetic about what a great shock this must be for me, which he probably thought was a compassionate thing to say.

I was thirty-one, and my life was over.

There wasn't anything helpful or soothing to be said.

I didn't react to his words in any way, just stared at the white screen beside my bed, willing him to go away.

He must have given me some kind of sedative shot; I felt a little jab in the crook of my arm before merciful, forgetful darkness welcomed me.

---

I drifted in and out of a doubtlessly drug-induced sleep for a couple of days, obediently sipping a bit of water or tea when one of the nurses held a cup to my lips, otherwise dozing through much of the day.

Often, when I tried to move in my half-sleep, I drowsily noticed some pain at the periphery of my body without giving a lot of thought to it, hoping it would pass quickly.

I much preferred this state to those fully lucid moments when I was awake enough to remember what the doctor had told me.

The strangest thing was that I could still feel it, all of it, achy and sore from hip to toe, although it was plain to see that the thin white cotton sheet was lying way too flat in the place where my right leg should have been to leave any room for doubt.

Once or twice, I forced myself to lift the covers and look at the monstrous plaster cast that encircled my hips and reached down to the right thigh, covering all that was left of it. The sight hurt me almost physically.

To think that I had believed I had been lucky, sustaining nothing worse than a fracture, when I had first become aware of the cast.

I should have known that such a simple straightforward thing would have been too much to ask for. There hadn't been much in my life that had gone the nice and clean and easy way.

I laughed bitterly when I recalled how my biggest worry had been the prospect of having to stay in the hospital for a while.

With what I knew now, I'd have been happy to spend a year or more in this place if it meant I'd walk out of it on my own two legs at the end.

I wished that kid on the island had shot me cleanly through the heart. Why couldn't he have put an end to my life once and for all instead of giving me that wound that had not killed me but ended life as I knew and loved it?

Thinking of my dead comrades, I realized with some dismay that I envied them somehow.

They didn't have to face a future that held no promise any longer, nothing but an irreparable handicap and with it an insurmountable heap of problems, my future an endless succession of no mores and never agains.

What was I to do with no chance of simply returning to my island and taking up my trade again, as I had planned to do, now that I suddenly found myself turned into one of those war invalids I'd fleetingly pitied when I encountered one and otherwise tried not to think about?

Even when I had become a soldier, I had never actually considered I might be one of them some day. I had of course been aware of the risk of getting wounded or even dying, but I had never actually considered the possibility of ending up crippled for life.

The worst thought of all was what had been the most encouraging, the most beautiful one all along, the one that had got me through many a horrible day in the battlefields.

The thought of the pearl I had carried with me all the time, and of the woman who was its rightful owner.

I longed for her, more than ever, craved her voice, her touch, her love, but at the same time she was the person I wanted to see the least in this sorry state I was in.

Or rather, the person I least wanted to see me.

Before all this, there had not been much I could have given her except the modest proceeds of the pearl trade and a very simple place to live.

Now there was nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing but the mangled unrecognizable wreck of a man she used to know.

I'd have to bury my dream of searching for her.

Even if I did get back a bit of strength and somehow managed to rack up the financial means it would take, it was simply out of the question to face her like this, risking to see rejection, shock, revulsion in her eyes, or, worst of all, pity.

I told myself it might have been a bad idea altogether to go looking for her.

How could I know that she hadn't taken up with another man long before and filed the short time we had shared under exotic adventure, reverting to her own social circles eventually when she came back home and never heard from me again.

Or she had come to the sad conclusion that everything had just been a brief romantic episode for this solitary tongue-tied bloke who had dispatched her back to Australia and preferred to stay on his little island of savages without a word of explanation, neither at the moment of goodbye nor any time later.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to know at all.

It didn't matter anyway.

She deserved better than a jobless one-legged ex-sailor, ex-pearl diver, ex-soldier.

Ex-everything.

---

Three weeks passed with maddening slowness.

So much time on my hands and nothing to fill it with except reading a few pages when I didn't feel too tired or distracted to concentrate.

I got stuck in endless loops of brooding over a changed, shattered life that didn't seem to hold any kind of allure, no hope of improvement.

There was nothing remotely encouraging, nothing worth fighting for. I didn't even have a work routine to go back to, unexciting but familiar. I wasn't needed anywhere, nor would I be able to do anything worthwhile.

The future seemed to stretch ahead of me like a barren wide expanse of bleak empty land, far too large and vast to even try and conquer.

On the other hand I wanted nothing more than to get out of here, even with nowhere to go, break out of the confines of white sheets and drab institutional corridors, get away from the bland food and the unnerving regularity of daily hospital routine.

I was rid of the large cast meanwhile and had been moved back into the main surgical ward, and I was allowed or rather expected to get up to bring a bit of strength back and get my circulation going, but that didn't do much for my state of mind.

Shuffling about in my hospital dressing gown, insecure on my one foot and the unwieldy crutches, always in danger of being thrown off balance by the tiniest disturbance, only made me painfully aware of how little control I had over my own body, how little was left of what I had once been.

My only company served but to remind me mercilessly of what I was now.

Wherever I looked, nothing but harried doctors and briskly efficient nurses and a lot of other men marked by the war - disabled, crippled, mutilated in a worldwide excess of slaughter that I had tried to ignore as long as I could only to be swallowed up in it anyway in the end.

I couldn't help comparing my own fate to that of the others, wondering if the loss of a hand would have been harder or easier to compensate than having my leg amputated above the knee, or if it would have been easier for me to bear if the bullet had hit me in the chest like Ronnie Craven, leaving hardly a trace on the outside but causing him to breathe like an old man, ragged and wheezing. He still looked every inch the athletic, able-bodied sportsman he used to be, but his lips were permanently tinged a telltale sickly blue and the smallest effort left him wretchedly out of breath.

Sometimes, I envied Brian Bennett who occasionally came over to my bedside to play a game of cards. He was a pretty blond boy of nineteen or twenty who had taken a shot to the head which reduced him to the mental state of a five-year-old child. When he wasn't crying for his mom or complaining tearfully that his headache was becoming unbearable again, he appeared to be the most light-hearted and contented one among us, not really aware of what his life used to be like before.

Whenever my eyes fell on Norman Vickers who occupied the bed next to Brian's, there was only one thought that crossed my mind, one bit of stale comfort: at least I still had a face to speak of.

The fact that there were others much worse off than myself didn't help much to make me feel better, though. I was pretty sure I'd have found some way to put an end to my life if I'd had my face burned and half my jaw blasted off by an exploding mine.

Yes, I still had my wits about me, I didn't look like some nightmarish gargoyle, and I was able to eat and drink and breathe properly and to button my shirts on my own, but I knew that what I had truly loved, what had been my passion, all that I had been living for, was over.

Running. Swimming. Diving. Sailing. Fishing. Jumping ashore as the narrow boat crunched upon the wet sand. Hauling goods off the supply ship that came once in a while. Bringing up pearl shells from the reef.

All the things I had loved were now the very things I would never do again.

And so was all that had only just become a part of my life again when the war had interfered.

Dancing with a woman – no, not just a woman, the woman I had wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

Walking on the beach with her on a moonlit night.

Making love.

It might indeed be better not to find her, if she was still alive.

What woman could want to share her bed, and her life, with a pitiful invalid who could barely manage to get dressed without aid?

This permanent experience of utter helplessness and dependence was what I found most disturbing of all. Having to admit that there really wasn't much I was capable of doing any more, and the uncertainty about how much of my treasured independence I would really manage to regain, threatened to drown out every little bit of success they said there was.

I hated not being in charge of my own body, of my own life, damaged as both might be.

I had vociferously refused to get into a wheelchair when the cast had come off and the doctor had deemed me strong enough to try and get up for the first time. Instead, I had demanded that they give me some crutches or canes or whatever it was that cripples used. After all I had seen some of the other amputees being put back on what was left of their legs and get an artificial limb frightfully soon after surgery, presumably to reduce the swelling and retain mobility. I'd have readily used anything that would have prevented me from getting carted around like a sack of coals or a heap of garbage.

The nurse – not Amelia, the young one who'd been with me when I woke up, but Myers, the rather snippy, thin one with a long nose and pinched face – had exchanged a superior knowing glance with the doctor that made me want to strangle her.

The doctor had said in a conciliatory tone, "Fine, Corporal, we'll see to that next time, but please do me the favour of getting into the chair this once. You've been out of order for a while after all. Let me …"

I had not wanted any help and begun to rise, but to my greatest embarrassment, I had been so weak after several weeks of lying around quite motionlessly that my remaining knee buckled under my weight and I would have fallen on my face shamefully if the doctor hadn't seen it coming and caught me.

The next time I had been way more careful, mobilizing all my strength to demonstrate that I was indeed fit enough to get up on my own and didn't need the chair. "I'll walk", was all I said, and I must have said it with a certain conviction, for no one ever tried again to confine me to a wheelchair.

The doctor was rather surprised, and quite pleased with me, and he ordered me to have some additional sessions of physical therapy to speed up my recovery.

I dutifully did what I was told to do, but my heart was never in it. I couldn't even show any excitement about the small bits of progress I was making. Everything had lost its shine for me.

Sometimes I felt like I had split into two parts. The physical healing of my wound went ahead textbook-style without the slightest complication, as if to spite the other half of me, the disillusioned soul who had lost maybe not entirely the will to live but certainly the zest and appetite for living.

Many a time I regretted having regained consciousness after the surgery that had destroyed all my hope of resuming a truly self-determined, fully independent life of my own.

I often remembered John MacGregor's final blessing.

God be with you, Michael!

Had he?

What was there to live for when not only my island was lost to me but also my profession and my physical ability and wholeness?

When Evelyn was lost?

When there seemed to be nothing but pain and depression and this heavy cloud of darkness that had taken hold of me?

When I even dreaded my own reflection?

I had never been particularly vain, had never cared much about my appearance, but now I was glad that there were no full-length mirrors anywhere around the ward. When I walked the corridors, I gave glass doors or tall windows a wide berth under certain lighting conditions, lest they'd make me face the sight of the sad cripple I had become.

It wasn't just the sight of the tucked-up trouser leg and what it concealed – or left all too visible – that put me off. I had also lost a lot of weight. I hadn't realized it so much lying in bed in my hospital pajamas, but when I had been allowed to dress in my own clothes for the first time, both shirt and trousers hung around my body loosely, shapelessly.

This, combined with the unnatural pallor that made my face appear even more gaunt and with the dark smudges under my tired eyes, gave me the miserable look of a prisoner who hasn't seen the light of day for longer than he can remember. The stale hospital air with its biting whiff of disinfectants kept causing me headaches that didn't exactly improve my mood either.

So one day, perhaps two or three weeks after the cast had come off, I dragged myself miserably along the corridor in bitter need of a tiny bit of privacy, eager to get away from all the other wounded men, slid into the only windowed nook in the hallway and longingly gazed outside, at a budding tree and a few crocuses sticking their blue and yellow heads out of the soil around its base.

I wanted to be out there, or, barring that, I wanted some fresh air at least.

I tried to reach for the rusty handle to open the tall window, but I had to admit, crestfallen, that it was set too high up in the frame and that I couldn't keep my balance well enough to stretch up and unlock it, to say nothing of actually moving it.

Panting a little, I sat down on the low marble sill with the chipped edge, leaning my head against the windowpane to stare into the dreary yet alluring gardens beyond the tree.

If only I could flee from this place, just for a little while. I was so desperate for air and sunlight and so utterly disappointed that I was not even able to open a freaking window on my own.

Soft squeaking noises on the linoleum floor heralded the arrival of some member of the nursing staff.

I froze. Whoever it was certainly should not see me and the tears of frustration brimming in my eyes.

"Need some fresh air?" a voice asked lightly. "Drives you mad, that fug in here, doesn't it?"

I was somewhat relieved that it was Amelia who had apparently witnessed my earlier wrestling with the window and not one of the others.

If I had any kind of friend in here, it was the young nurse who had first noted my awakening after the operation. I was calling her by her first name by now, at least when we were alone, and she, refreshingly, never called me "Corporal" any more if nobody was listening.

I remembered how she had said, "My name's Amelia. But don't let Raffles" – the formidable Sister Rafferty – "hear you call me that. Remember it must be Nurse Heffernan when she's around. She's rather strict about what she's termed 'fraternising' and she might even have me transferred to another ward." She had rolled her eyes and gone on in a scornful tone, "What a load of bullshit that is. How are you boys supposed to get better if nobody's allowed to talk to you in a civilised manner?"

Her easy-going attitude always did me a world of good among all those strictly professional doctors and nurses who didn't seem to see anything but cases when they entered the ward.

Now she added, "I know that look on your face, all starved for fresh air. It's exactly what my father looked like when he had to spend some weeks in hospital before the war. He's a farmer. You're an outdoors kind of guy, too, aren't you? Let me guess. Farmer? Ranger?" She wrinkled her forehead thoughtfully until her eyes lit up and she pointed a finger at me. "Oh, no, I know! You've got this tattoo on your arm. What is it – a seahorse?" She cocked her head and squinted at my forearm left bare by my rolled-up shirtsleeve. "I bet you are a sailor or a fisherman!"

"A fisherman was what my grandfather brought me up to be", I replied. "We used to work together aboard our boat, the Blue Seahorse. I got this in his memory after he died."

"What a lovely idea. And your seahorse boat? Is it still there? Will you be going back to it when you're out of here?"

I laughed bitterly. "How could I? She's been wrecked and hauled off to the scrap yard a long time ago. Just the thing that's happened to me now."

"Carpenter. Please don't say that. You're not wrecked. You've been injured badly but …"

"Just take a good look around here, Amelia! It is much like a scrap yard for disused, bashed-up soldiers, isn't it? Just look at all those cripples."

"You definitely need a bit of fresh air to brighten up your thoughts", she said decisively, leaving my remark uncommented on.

I expected her to go get something to climb on so she could open the window for me.

Instead, she told me, "Get up and come along with me, Carpenter. Let me show you something."

I was a little puzzled but followed her, cautiously watching every step I took, every spot I planted the crutches. I hated those awkward things fiercely but was also grudgingly grateful that they granted me a minimum of liberty, even if each movement, each change of direction required careful planning and precise execution so I'd not stumble and fall. I had learned that much from painful experience.

Amelia steered me into a short narrow side corridor which branched off near the glass doors to the staircase and led towards the low annex to the main building where the kitchens were housed.

We passed by the kitchen doorway, hearing the clatter of crockery and loud voices from behind it, then Amelia threw open the sage-green wooden door at the end of the corridor. It opened onto a tiny concrete yard with a row of trash cans in a six-foot brick enclosure to one side and a clump of shrubbery to the other.

"I know you're not supposed to be outside yet, but it's so clear to see that it's killing you to be locked up indoors. This door's always open, and there's a bench just around the corner." She pointed into the direction of the brick walling. "Don't worry, you won't smell the garbage from there. And what's best, no one's gonna see you there from the main building. Just try not to let anyone spy you sneaking out." She grinned. "And don't you take a fall with nobody but me around to pick you up. You may have gotten rather skinny, but you're still too big and heavy for a girl to lift alone."

It was a very warm afternoon for early spring, overcast and a little muggy. I sank down on the wooden seat and took hard, deep breaths, angry at how quickly I got exhausted these days. (Amelia kept reassuring me my strength would come back, and what did I expect after lying around for weeks – months even – and there might have been some truth to her words, but there were times that I doubted it would ever happen. I couldn't see much progress in the fact that I was now able to hobble up and down the full length of the hospital corridor without having to pause. She had praised me as if I had achieved something truly great, but it was way too little to me, and I guessed she'd only wanted to be nice and encourage me, the way you praise a child's small successes indulgently.)

"I'll come fetch you in an hour so you'll be back in time for dinner. If anyone asks, you've been taken downstairs for another X ray and had to wait all the time for your turn, as always", Amelia said cheerfully and handed me a small apple. "Last of this year's harvest from my father's orchard. Bit wrinkled, but still rather juicy."

"Thanks", I said with a surprised smile, touched by her gesture.

"Don't mention it. I know it's not apples you guys are after. It's beer and fags you want, isn't it?"

I had indeed craved a smoke for quite a while.

She stuck her hand into the pocket of her apron again. "Hard to hide a stash of beer in there, but what do you think of this?" She slid two battered cigarettes and a book of matches into the breast pocket of my shirt.

I looked at her in disbelief, opening my mouth to thank her, but she only put a finger to her lips and grinned again. "Enjoy, and shut up about it. And remember the eleventh commandment."

I raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Thou shalt not get caught!"

With that, she disappeared, apron strings flying.

I was half sure I would get caught some time, but I didn't care.

I rubbed my leg stump thoughtfully – it was playing up a bit today and I wondered why it still felt as if an ill-fitting shoe was pinching those toes that were merely history now – while I hastily ate Amelia's tasty little apple and then lit my first cigarette in months.

A sudden breeze cooled the air, and when I closed my eyes, I managed to forget my surroundings for a little while, the hospital, the crutches propped against the bench, the bandaged aching remains of my leg, and let my mind succumb to the illusion of being back on the porch of my island home, treating myself to a cigarette after a hard day's work.

Although this pleasant mind game didn't last long, I felt happier than I ever had since I had taken that fateful bullet.

It was so good to be outdoors, to smoke a cigarette, to be alone for a while and to actually forget, even if it was just for a few precious moments, even if the grim reality caught up with me when Amelia came to say it would soon be time for dinner and it took me so wretchedly long to pick myself up from that bench.

I made use of this newfound way of escape as often as I could, but then the weather thwarted my plans with a backlash of wintry, cold, rainy days, and I was once more reduced to walking these stained greenish-grey linoleum floors I had come to know so well, and was so sick of.

During one of my treks along the corridor, I rounded a corner a little too boldly and bumped into an obstacle.

It was one of the cleaning ladies. She had apparently overturned her pail and was bent double in the process of mopping up the mess.

She started and squealed as I slammed into her, and before I knew it, I had slipped and fallen.

The woman was horrified and apologized profusely in her heavily accented English.

I didn't listen. Sitting on my ass in the middle of a large puddle of water that was quickly beginning to seep through the seat of my pants was the ultimate humiliation, and I started to curse wildly, mostly because I had no idea how I was supposed to get out of that pickle but also because both my newly healed thigh and my right wrist hurt from the crash.

"Goddammit, woman, can't you fucking watch what you're doing?" I shouted.

"I'm so sorry, really, Mister, I am", she stammered. "Are you hurt? I mean …"

"It's not 'Mister', it's 'Corporal'", I snarled at her. "And stop asking stupid questions. Get someone to help me, for God's sake!"

She held out her hands in a sheepish attempt to help me up.

I waved her away harshly. "No, no, not you scrawny thing, that's never gonna work. Get going, for heaven's sake, hurry up!"

"Yes, yes, Mister, I mean, yes, Corporal … sir." Visibly shaken, she scurried off.

I thought I heard her sobbing softly and was deeply disgusted with myself.

What a fucked-up sonofabitch I had become, insisting on a rank I'd never wanted, making the poor thing weep when she had just wanted to be helpful.

By the time I heard footsteps approaching and Amelia's soothing voice telling the cleaner not to cry and not to worry, I had managed to creep over to where a large old radiator was bolted to the wall and clumsily succeeded in pulling myself into a standing position. I held on to the cold ribs of the radiator and waited for the pain to subside, my heart still beating a rapid rhythm.

I knew I cut a ridiculous figure, a grown-up man clinging to some object for balance like a toddler who's only just learned to walk and doesn't dare let go of his support for fear of toppling over.

"Go get another rag, Isabel, this one's soaked", Amelia said behind my back.

Only when the cleaner had hurried off once more did she softly touch my arm.

"Hey, Carpenter. Are you okay?" Her voice was calm and quiet and caring and free of that sappily commiserative undertone I had come to loathe, but I still kept staring sightlessly into the dusty space behind the radiator, behaving like a young child again who tries to hide by simply closing his eyes.

"Here", she added, and I finally, tiredly looked round and saw she had picked my crutches up from where they had tumbled.

I took them off her with a wordless nod of thanks, eager to leave the scene of my embarrassing misfortune as fast as I could. My weight coming down on my smarting wrist made me wince and made me pause for a moment, carefully jiggling my hand to assess the damage.

"Are you really okay?" she asked again. "What's with your hand?"

"Nothing", I lied. "I'm fine. Go back to work. Don't worry about me."

"Won't you let me have a look at least?" She made to reach for my wrist but I jerked it away.

"Leave it! I said it's all right. I'll survive. I've survived a lot worse than that. Even if I wish I hadn't." I turned around brusquely.

"Oh, Carpenter, don't …" Her voice trailed off as I walked away from her without a backward glance.

I couldn't bear her compassion right now.

I wanted to retreat and lick my wounds, alone. Or as alone as I could be in a ward full of men.

Halfway back there, I did an about-face.

I couldn't stand any kind of company now. I didn't have the nerve to indulge Brian's childlike chatter or the whingeing or joking of some of the others. They certainly wouldn't let me simply get into bed and hide under the covers in the middle of the day.

Gritting my teeth against the pain in my wrist, I steered towards my windowed alcove in the corridor. It wasn't comfortable nor shielded from view but still the closest to solitude I could come within the hospital.

While my eyes followed the raindrops' dreary path down the windowpane, I couldn't help feeling like a tiger in the zoo, torn between restlessness and resignation as he moves ceaselessly behind the bars of his cage, fully aware that all the pacing isn't going to take him one step closer to his freedom but unable to give in and accept his fate.

I was so ashamed of what had happened. Worst of all, there was no denying that accidents like this one were bound to happen again and again, anywhere I went, any time something unanticipated came my way abruptly.

You might get used to walking on crutches or with an artificial leg, to a brutally changed body, perhaps even to being denied so many things you had loved so dearly, but how could you possibly learn to bear the embarrassment and humiliation of moments like these?

I imagined myself somewhere in the street, helplessly sprawled on the ground, unable to get up by myself, having to cry for help, to rely on the kindness of strangers.

Yes, in a way it was worse than dying to find myself an awkward cripple, to realize that my body was no longer a dependable ally but unreliable at best and a treacherous enemy at worst, to lose not only a limb but my dignity and self-respect.

I was so sick of that ludicrous blundering figure I had become.

I was so sick of my life.

I was so sick of everything.

I averted my glance from the window and the view of the garden that offered no comfort today. Even the little colourful splotches of the crocuses below the tree appeared shrunken and forlorn in the wind and rain.

The stark white walls of the corridor and the yellowed doorframes were an even less uplifting sight. Feeling drained and old, I stared at the doorways on the other side of the corridor blearily until something caught my attention.

Something small I could see through the half-open door of the ward's small dispensary just opposite the window, reflecting the light of a desk lamp someone had left switched on, setting off a flash idea in my mind.

The room was empty, wasn't it?

Making sure nobody was watching, I took a few determined steps across the floor, softly knocked on the door and waited for a moment, just to be sure.

When no one answered, I pushed the door open a little farther and entered the cramped windowless room lined with glass-fronted cabinets, magically attracted to the brown vial someone had negligently left sitting on the desk in the centre of the room.

It was half full, and I wondered how many it would take.

A little shakily, I leaned over, careful to keep my precarious balance, and picked up the small bottle of thick brown glass. First I wanted to pocket it and take it with me for later use, but then I thought I might as well sit down and do it right here.

It would be easier in here after all, without any spectators or interruptions.

I put the vial back on the desk pad, gingerly placed myself on the torn cloth seat of the time-worn swivel chair and looked at the label to make sure it was what I needed.

It was, but the pills were very large.

Water. I'd need some water to wash them down.

I looked around the room frantically and found nothing suitable.

Damn.

I got up once more, leaning heavily on one of the crutches, the vial in my free hand, making my clumsy way over to the cabinets in the hope of finding some liquid I could use.

But no luck. All the cabinets were locked and the keys had been removed, and I didn't want to run the risk of alerting anyone if I noisily smashed one of the glass panes.

I decided to simply try and swallow them without water. One last inconvenience wouldn't matter, I thought as I sat down again.

The very moment I pulled the stopper from the vial and was about to tip out its contents, I heard a raised voice outside the door, calling out something unintelligible.

I froze, vial in hand, hoping whoever it was would pass by without taking notice of me.

The door was flung open, and someone said, "Dr. Markby? I have a … Oh holy shit, Carpenter, what are you doing? No - DON'T!"

A figure hurled itself towards me and violently swept the vial from my hand, jarring the sprained wrist once more.

The little glass bottle went over the edge of the desk and shattered on the floor.

I swore angrily and squinted up into the familiar round face the desk lamp was illuminating from below, enraged and pink under her white cap knocked askew, hazel eyes so wild that I almost expected a slap in the face.

She didn't even yell at me.

For what must have been a full minute or longer, she stood over me and simply stared into my eyes, her chest heaving.

I didn't move. I just stared back, transfixed.

When she finally opened her mouth, I braced myself for a forceful dressing-down, self-consciously rubbing my doubly maltreated wrist. Amelia was never afraid to give anyone a piece of her mind if she thought he deserved it and I thought I knew what I was in for.

Instead, she asked in a choked, distraught voice, "Do you know that I'm supposed to have you locked away upstairs now, Carpenter? Any patient exhibiting self-endangering tendencies is to be committed to the psychiatric ward. These are the rules." She snuffled rudely, furiously wiped at her eyes and went on, "No, Carpenter, I'm not going to turn you in. I don't believe you really wanted to do it."

Jesus. My stomach knotted at the thought of someone other than Amelia catching me red-handed, someone who certainly wouldn't have hesitated to consign me to the loony bin. What a bumbling idiot I had been, not even closing the door behind me.

I wondered if she was right, if maybe I had not been entirely serious about this, however strongly I had felt at that moment that it was my only way out.

"Carpenter! Listen to me!" Amelia's voice had lost its tearful trembling and cut sharply into my thoughts, resolute as ever. "D'you hear what I'm saying?"

"Uh …"

"Fine, I'll say it again. If you as much as think about trying again, I'll deliver you to the funny farm single-handedly, is that clear?"

I nodded weakly.

"And no word to anyone, d'you hear me? Now get the hell out of here. No, wait, I'll take you back where you belong before I clean up this mess I've made to save your sorry life."

This time, I said it.

"Do I have to be grateful now?"

She threw me a killer glance, and I actually managed a tiny, weary smile as I struggled to stand. One part of me was, in a twisted kind of way, relieved that the decision had been made for me, while another regretted the failed attempt to end this misery.

Amelia escorted me back to the ward, and, ironically, had me take a sleeping pill.

I slipped into my bed, fully dressed, feeling physically and emotionally exhausted.

Curling up into a ball, the way I'd used to do when I was unhappy as a child, I was, once more, glad when darkness finally enveloped me, shutting out the laborious reality for a while.